Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Turbo Tax- The Free Federal Edition

What with the Feds not even sending out paper tax booklets this year, they want us to all do taxes on the internets. Turbo Tax has a "free" Federal edition you can use online.

This would be the first time I used Turbo tax & in & of itself, it was pretty nice.
It does all those little annoying side show portions where they have you do intricate math equations for several lines, only to determine you don't qualify & you will never get those collective hours of your life back.

But this free version will hound you incessantly about wanting to purchase an upgrade. $20 bucks? $40 bucks? You can keep clicking no, & keep going, but as you may have guessed, it will keep asking. In fact once the Federal tax is complete, it will offer to do your State taxes too.

Wow! Piece of cake! But then it will tell you the Federal part was free, but the State part is gonna cost you. $27.99. You have the option to choose no & let you do your own State tax, which is largely based on Federal taxes.

It then throws in a trickily worded "consent" to sign off on consent to use your info for other things besides taxes. Just say NO.

Again another tricky little item asking how you might like to be solicited-- phone, e mail or snail mail.
No NO NOOOOO!

I counted at least 10 attempts for the "free" version to try hit us up for $$$.

Hi Nonnie... I only know about our area-- the State still mails forms, but this year the Feds did not. Our local post office used to carry several most popular forms & such, but maybe since the Feds are not using them this year, they decided to not allow forms to be on premises either??So then it is go fish @ the IRS office... all the forms are online, which is great if you have access & a printer that works & ink.... Turbo allowed me to print the completed Federal forms & e file. The State can wait as we owe them money!

I have been using TaxSlayer on line for years. It's $9.99. Since I have a couple of extra forms and a state return, I paid a total of under 20 bucks this year. They just ask you the questions, you answer them, they do all the calculations for State and Federal. You can download and save a copy in a PDF for print out.The only problem this year is that i got all my stuff early and filed, but the IRS, (Federal), is not accepting tax forms that use the Schedule A, (Itemized Deductions), until the middle to the end of February. Their reason is that the late December changes that came out of the House and Senate made them re-tool their software and it simply won't be ready until then.So, I sit here waiting for them to accept that they got my electronic filing. The States won't acknowledge until the Feds do, so I wait for State too! And I have money coming back from both!Anyway, I like TaxSlayer and i am very pleased, year after year. If you decide to go with them, let me know. I get ten bucks off for a referral.Hope all is good with you.Going to El Paso tomorrow to walk the Peace Vigil with Border Explorer.

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